Dynamical quorum-sensing in oscillators coupled through an external medium

PHYSICA D-NONLINEAR PHENOMENA

卷:241

Article

Schwab, David J.^2,3  Baetica, Ania⁴  Mehta, Pankaj¹ 

[1] Boston Univ, Dept Phys, Boston, MA 02215 USA

[2] Princeton Univ, Dept Mol Biol, Princeton, NJ 08854 USA

[3] Princeton Univ, Lewis Sigler Inst, Princeton, NJ 08854 USA

[4] Princeton Univ, Dept Math, Princeton, NJ 08854 USA

关键词: Quorum sensing;    Synchronization;    Synthetic biology;    Kuramoto model;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.physd.2012.08.005

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Many biological and physical systems exhibit population-density-dependent transitions to synchronized oscillations in a process often termed dynamical quorum sensing. Synchronization frequently arises through chemical communication via signaling molecules distributed through an external medium. We study a simple theoretical model for dynamical quorum sensing: a heterogenous population of limit-cycle oscillators diffusively coupled through a common medium. We show that this model exhibits a rich phase diagram with four qualitatively distinct physical mechanisms that can lead to a loss of coherent population-level oscillations, including a novel mechanism arising from effective time-delays introduced by the external medium. We derive a single pair of analytic equations that allow us to calculate phase boundaries as a function of population density and show that the model reproduces many of the qualitative features of recent experiments on Belousov-Zhabotinsky catalytic particles as well as synthetically engineered bacteria. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

Free